Are Businesses Measuring Their Corporate Social Responsibility?

Companies start corporate social responsibility initiatives for a variety of reasons.

At the core of all of them, however, is the idea that it's possible to do well by doing good. In fact, not only is it possible, it’s expected—by consumers, stakeholders, and even job seekers. Soon, companies may find they have a difficult time doing well if they are not doing good.

In addition to making a meaningful difference in the world, corporate social responsibility offers significant benefits for companies who engage in them. Corporate social responsibility programs can encourage innovation, lower operating costs, assist with brand differentiation, inspire employees, and engage consumers.

Honestly, if corporate social responsibility can do all that, companies can’t afford not to at least give it a try!

For those who've been following the rise of corporate social responsibility over the last decade, it’s likely accepted as common knowledge. But many companies aren't seeing any sort of return on investment with their corporate social responsibility initiatives.

Does that mean corporate social responsibility doesn’t actually provide these benefits? Absolutely not. But it does mean that companies aren't actually measuring their corporate social responsibility impact.

If you want to see a return on investment, you have to actually measure your results. We listed several benefits of corporate social responsibility above. For the purpose of this post, we’re going to focus on employee attraction and retention, cost savings related to new hires, and brand image.

Employee Attraction and Retention

In less than five years, millennials will make up more than half of the workforce. That means if you want to attract the best and the brightest new talent, you're going to have appeal to millennials.

While there are always a number of factors that influence job seekers, corporate social responsibility is a significant consideration for millennials. In fact, 72% of millennials said it was important to their happiness to have a job where they felt they could make an impact. How important? Well, over 60% of millennials would accept a voluntary pay cut to work for a socially responsible company.

Brand Image

Unlike employee retention and training costs, brand image and awareness can be quite difficult to measure. But just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

With tools like Google Analytics, you can track how people reach your website. People who type your URL directly into the address bar are obviously familiar with your brand.

You can review search volume data to see how many searches are being done on your brand name. And don’t forget social media!

When you listen in to consumers via social media, you get a clear idea of their familiarity with and opinion of your brand. Once you know to track these metrics, it’s easy enough to start collecting the data.

If you're not measuring the impact of your corporate social responsibility programs, there's no way to see your return on investment. Once you know where to look, you are one step closer to being able to really see what corporate social responsibility can do for your company. While you can pull this data and compile it into a report when needed, it’s going to take some time and likely be a bit cumbersome.

Conclusion

To be honest, that’s probably a big reason companies aren’t measuring these metrics already. But there’s actually no need to remake the wheel when you want to measure your return on investment with corporate social responsibility. A comprehensive, intuitive corporate social responsibility tool, such as WorkHero from Encast, can ensure this information is tracked and easily accessible. If that sounds too good to be true, why not contact us and find out more about corporate social responsibility solutions today?

James Moore runs communications and whatever else is needed for Encast. He is a New York Times best-selling author. Seriously. And is working on his seventh book. He also talks on MSNBC some times about politics. And knows more about Texas than is healthy. He loves motorcycles, too, and is presently obsessed with making Encast great. Don’t let him bore you talking about West Texas and the desert.

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